Friday, April 11, 2014

Author Aaron Starmer

Friday might be my favorite day of the week on this blog. I can always depend on amazing authors, illustrators, teachers, and librarians to finish my sentences. A huge THANK YOU to everyone who has participated over the past two years.

This week's special guest is Aaron Starmer. He dropped by to chat with me about The Riverman, storytelling, reading, school libraries, and my beach house. I wrote the words in red, and he wrote the words in black. Many thanks, Aaron!

Fiona Loomis is "unknowable
in the way that all girls are unknowable, but also in her own way." That's
a line from the book and it sums up the hero Alistair's view of Fiona in the
beginning. She's a mystery. But there's a problem with viewing people as
mysteries. You tend to want to figure them out, rather than get to know them.
And that's the wrong way to form a relationship, as I think Alistair discovers.
Fiona is knowable. Like anyone, it takes time and effort to get to know her.

I hope The Riverman surprises readers. I know a lot of people will
be a bit befuddled when they finish it, but I urge them to look at it with
fresh eyes. They don't have reread the thing, just ask themselves why the story
was presented in the way it was. They might begin to connect more dots than
they realize.

The
Indubitable Dweebis the name of my blog. I
don't update it nearly as much as I should. There's some fun stuff buried in
the archives from 2010 and 2011, but I've been too busy to keep at it. And the
readership consists of about three people, so no one's really clamoring for
more. The name comes from my first book (DWEEB) and from
the fact that I am undoubtedly a dweeb. Indubitable is an underused word, in my
opinion.

As a child I was a storyteller. It's
always been an integral part of my life and I think people sometimes undervalue
storytelling in their lives. That's not to say that everyone needs to be rabid
readers of novels, but I think that the ability to enjoy and to tell a story is
an essential one. It's more than recreation. It's how we understand other
people. It's one of the ways we form empathy.

Whenever I visit a
schoolI tell a story. It's been
25 years since I was in middle school, but certain situations are universal so
I like to air my adolescent laundry. Detail my embarrassments. My triumphs. The
mundane situations. Middle school is a glorious and hideous time and everything
in between. The message for kids shouldn't always be "It gets better"
or "Enjoy it while you can." They are in the middle of something
significant. They should be in it, survive it, laugh at it. I am who I am
because of those stories.

Reading isboring sometimes. It's a
chore sometimes. But (and this is a rather large but) when you find a single
book that grabs you, trust me there are countless other books that will grab
you as well.

School libraries are there to help you find
that next book that will grab you. That's the job of librarians. To make sure
you don't waste your time. If you've ever visited a new city, you know it helps
to be guided by someone who lives there. Librarians live in the library (really
they have murphy beds that fold down from the self-help section).

Mr. Schu, you should have
asked me to dog-sit at your beach
house for a month or two. I assume you have a beach house, and a dog, and the
desire to give me a vacation, because I could use one. If I'm wrong, then you
should have asked me if I'm grateful for the opportunity to share The Riverman with readers of your site. And the answer would
be an indubitable YES.

About Mr. Schu

I am a part-time lecturer at Rutgers University and the Ambassador of School Libraries for Scholastic. I work diligently to put the right book in every child's hand. Book trailers are one way to connect readers with books. (All opinions shared are on own.)